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Kaylani Wright

Professor Beadle

English 114A 12:30-1:45

5 December 2018

Is Happiness Possible?

What is the true meaning of happiness? What is going to make each individual person

happy? As we read, each author of the three readings we looked at how each author has a

different belief on how to achieve true happiness. Although all of them write about happiness

they don’t all share the same opinion. Brooks believes that happiness does not come from

assumptions. That assuming something is ok makes you happy or assuming that you're going to

get something makes you happy. Brooks believes that you have to fail in order to achieve true

happiness. Hill talks about living with less leads to true happiness. He believes that living with

less materials will in the end make you a happier person. He is trying to prove that materials do

not equal happiness. He does this by sharing his own story. Last Lyubomirsky believes that no

person can truly be genuinely happy. She writes about her own struggles and shares the stories.

Although the three authors each believe in their own thing...They all show through their writings

that each person has a different way of finding their true happiness, but it is possible for

everyone to find happiness in their life if they truly want to achieve it. They show that with some

work and maybe some sacrifices that true happiness is acheivable.

The first reading we looked at was “What suffering does”, written by David Brooks.

Brooks believes that happiness is not achieved from an assumption. He believes that to achieve

happiness you must suffer. You must fail in order to realize what truly makes you happy. David

Brooks’ first argument to prove his thesis states “suffering drags you deeper into yourself” (285).
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When people go through suffering, they often come out knowing themselves a lot better. Going

through pain and heartbreak will in the end show you what makes you happy. In Brooks’ reading

it says, “find they are not who they believed themselves to be” (Brooks 285), people often realize

that the person they thought they were is not who they are meant to be. David Brooks writes

“Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out

healed; they come out different” (Brooks 286/287). When we heal from a cold or the flu, we are

the same person just healed from the sickness that we had. Brooks uses logos to prove his thesis

he writes about facts that he has seen himself and read about. When we recover from suffering

such as a loss in the family or even a mental illness we are changed forever. The point that

Brooks is trying to make is that you are not happy based on assumption, but rather learning from

your suffering makes you happier.

The second reading we looked at written by Graham Hill, Living with Less. A Lot Less,

talks about how living with less materialistic items makes you a healthier and happier human

being. Hill starts off his reading by talking about his own situation, “I live in a 420-foot studio. I

sleep on a bed that folds down from the wall” (Hill 308). He writes about how he lived in a small

studio apartment and that he lived a very minimalist life. He writes that he only has “six dress

shirts” and “10 shallow bowls” (Hill 308). Hill writes about how he only lives with a couple

items that are necessary for him to live. Throughout his entire reading, Hill talks about his own

story and how he lived a lavish life but was unhappy so decided to get rid of it all and live a

simpler life with less gadgets and materialistic items. Hill uses pathos to reach his audience to

show that he is relatable to them. He shows that even though he had the money to have a huge

house and all the things we could ever want, was not what was going to make him happy. He

showed that living with less and a simple life was the way to his happiness. Hill writes “My

success and the things it bought quickly changed from novel to normal. Soon I was numb to it
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all” (309). He expected to receive those items instead of hoping to get them which is what his

point is, at some point you expect material items instead of hoping for them. Towards the end of

his writing he bases what he writes about on the findings of Professor Bodenhausen, “Though

American consumer activity has increased substantially since the 1950s, happiness levels have

flatlined,” immediately after that he writes “I don’t know that the gadgets I was collecting in my

loft were part of an aberrant or antisocial behavior plan during the first few months I lived in

SoHo” (Hill 311). He writes about how all this technology he was buying was making him this

antisocial person who stayed indoors all the time. Towards the end of his reading he writes,

“Intuitively, we know that he best stuff in life is not stuff at all, and that relationships,

experiences and meaningful work are the staples of a happy life” (Hill 311). He writes his focus

which is that materialistic items are not the main source of happiness and that everyone deep

down inside knows that whether we show it or not.

The last reading, we read was by Sonja Lyubomirsky, to prove her reasoning about

happiness. She starts her reading by asking questions to get your brain thinking. She gets us to

think about our friends and the people around us. She then writes “It’s especially frustrating and

perplexing to be around such individuals when they’re in the same difficult or troubling

situations we are but seem happy in spite of it” (Lyubomirsky 179). She makes the first sentence

of the article very relatable because we have all had that happen to us where it seems we are the

only unhappy person out of everyone we know. She used ethos to relate to her readers and show

that she is an ethical writer and has very good points. She does this by writing about other

people’s stories and interviewing others and getting good resources to support her thesis. She

writes about people she interviewed and studied and before she writes their story she says, “I’ve

even found a few who remain happy or are able to recover their happiness fairly quickly after

tragedies or major setbacks” (Lyubomirsky 180). She then goes on to talk about her first cases
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whose name is Angela and says, “Angela is thirty-four and one of the happiest people that I ever

interviews. You wouldn’t guess it, however, from all she’s had to bear...her mother was

emotionally and physically abusive to her, and her father did nothing to intervene” (Lyubomirsky

180). She starts by writing about Angela’s background giving you the reader an inside view of

how she grew up, letting the audience get to know the interviewee. Although Angela endured all

of this as a child and more throughout her life, the writer states, “She finds deep satisfaction in

helping others heal from their own wounds and traumas” (Lyubomirsky 180). She then starts to

talk about a second interview she had with a man named Randy who just like Angela suffered a

lot as a child. He talked about his divorce and picking himself back up after that. The reading

says, “Randy is an eternal optimist and claims that seeing the ‘silver lining in the cloud’ has

always been hi key to survival” (Lyubomirsky 181). He has his own way of being happy which

is what everyone in this world needs to find. They found their own way to be happy for

themselves and not for the people around them. They weren’t so worried about making the rest

of the world happy and they were only focused on themselves.

In conclusion, all the authors had valid points on true happiness and each of them had

great supporting arguments. They all had their own view, but in the end still feel that the best

thing in life is true happiness. True happiness is tailored to each person individually and I believe

that each author has proven that by giving us different examples and how those examples were

achieved. Hill for example found true happiness when he lived with less material items and in

Lyubomirsky's reading, Angela, the woman she interviewed finds happiness in helping others

through their troubles even though no one was there to help her through her trouble as a child

growing up. Brooks writing really goes along with Lyubomirsky’s because he writes about how

true happiness comes from suffering and Lyubomirsky writes about people who have suffered in

the past. Although the authors each had their own way of finding true happiness, they all showed
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that it was possible for each individual person. One author used logos by giving scientific

evidence on happiness. Another used for ethos by using the stories of others showing that she

was credible based on that fact that she talked to others to find their stories. The last author used

pathos by using his own story and his own life to show how he found happiness for himself. In

the end the authors proved that everyone does have a way to find happiness and that is tailored to

each person individually.

Works Cited

Brooks, David. “What suffering Does.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt and

Dawn Skorezewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016, pp 284-287.

Hill, Graham, “Living with less. A lot less.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt and

Dawn Skirezewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016, pp 308-313

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. “How Happy are you and why?” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew

Parfitt and Dawn Skorezewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016, pp 179-197.